I saw two movies this weekend. “Drag Me to Hell” and “Away We Go”. Not a whole lot of overlap on those two movies except for the fact that both titles imply some type of movement, willing or unwilling. So, two completely different movies. But after seeing both and thinking about it, there was one thing they had in common: They were both made by adults. In other words, they were both good movies made by filmmakers who are actually experts in their field. Raimi and Mendes both know how to make a fucking movie and their fingerprints are all over them. You know when you’re watching it that it was made by someone who knows what they are doing. Refreshing. “Away We Go” is the story of a couple (Maya Rudolph and John Krasinski) who are expecting their first child and travel around the U.S. in order to find a perfect place to start their family. Along the way they reconnect with friends and family members. But unfortunately, only briefly. Every time I thought “hey, I really liked that character”, four minutes later they were gone. The movie is funny and touching and it hits all the right notes on impending parenthood. From “Are we ready?” to “Will we be good parents?” to “What if one of us loses his or her mind?” Krasinski and Rudolph are great and they deserve a lot of credit but even more credit goes to director Sam Mendes for giving us a funny and touching film that switches up in unexpected places without falling into that horrible comedy trap of being funny at first and then boring and dramatic by the end. In other words, rent a random Michael Keaton movie and see what I mean. Mendes definitely has lightened up after the bleak and depressing (yet still good) “Revolutionary Road”. He probably had to. You gotta lighten up a little every once in a while. If he had made “American Beauty” and “Revolutionary Road” back to back instead of putting “Road to Perdition” in between half his crew probably would have killed themselves. You need a brain-palate cleanser from all the oppressive subtext. The main problem with the film is some problems with the script structure. It’s episodic, which doesn’t always work. We meet quirky, fun characters and then never see them again as it’s off to another city. And the ending is a bit of a letdown. I wanted a little more. 90’s indie cliché alert: Some movies don’t end, they just stop. So a bit of a week payoff. But all in all this was a solid film that was both funny and emotional and it also had great performances albeit all the supporting ones were quite brief. Mendes gave comedic actors a chance to show their range, and they did. So I actually recommend seeing “Away We Go” and “Drag Me to Hell” in the same weekend. Add “Up” and you have a trifecta of great, imaginative filmmaking made by people who know how to make movies and not make you regret paying increasingly higher movie theater prices. In a way, these are “anti-summer movie” movies, which is actually making for a great summer movie season. I’ll take ironic (and demonic) lower key goodness over high budget bland Ron Howard/Michael Bay suckiness any day.
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